Microsoft has introduced new environmental sustainability capabilities in Azure API Management, marking a significant evolution in carbon‑aware cloud operations. The public preview of these features enables organizations to reduce the environmental footprint of their API infrastructures through energy‑efficient, carbon‑intelligent routing and operations.
Aligned with Microsoft’s long‑term climate objectives—to be carbon negative by 2030 and to remove historical emissions by 2050—the update builds on existing tools such as Azure Carbon Optimization and Microsoft Sustainability Manager. The addition of carbon‑aware API logic extends sustainability into the operational layer of cloud applications, allowing API traffic management itself to become an active driver of emission reduction.
Azure API Management can now dynamically shift or balance API traffic toward Azure regions with lower carbon intensity, based on real‑time emissions data. Developers can configure their backends to automatically prefer these “green” regions, helping achieve lower infrastructure emissions without compromising latency or availability. The platform’s carbon‑intelligent load balancers continuously analyze emission profiles across data centers, ensuring routing decisions reflect both sustainability and system performance.
In parallel, the update also introduces adaptive carbon‑intelligent policies. These allow runtime operations—such as telemetry volume, caching, or rate limiting—to adjust automatically in response to prevailing carbon levels. For example, systems can extend cache durations or reduce data logging during periods of high emission intensity, optimizing energy use while maintaining functional reliability.
Extending these capabilities, Microsoft has integrated similar sustainability intelligence into its Generative AI (GenAI) release channel, enabling AI workloads to align with eco‑conscious compute practices by default.
The public preview is currently available for classic tiers of Azure API Management (Developer, Basic, Standard, and Premium), with broader rollout expected in subsequent phases. Organizations can access the preview or enroll for early access via the official Azure portal.
